Writers have described New York City since the harbor was discovered in 1524. Artists have captured its every sparkle and shadow. In "New York, New York," paintings, prints, photographs, postcards, and other works of art from the Museum's encyclopedic collections have been sensitively paired with writing that celebrates the city, including poems, letters, fiction, and memoirs. Here, a Charles Dickens report on the bustle of Broadway matches nineteenth-century bird's-eye lithographs. Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" illuminates an early photogravure by Alfred Stieglitz; and Toni Morrison'...View More...

It is said that art reveals the heart of humankind, architecture the soul of civilization. This summer, heart and soul will merge in the new building for Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Designed by famous Berlin architect Josef Paul Kleihues (his first U.S. commission), the new MCA stands beside both celebrated Michigan Avenue and the city's stunning lake shore. This book examines the entire process of starting and then dramatically expanding a contemporary art museum, from the tumultuous sixties to the cusp of a new century. The MCA's achievements, such as Christo's first wrapping o...View More...

From Ancient Egyptian frescoes to the Renaissance masters, from French Impressionists to American Abstract Expressionists, this highly browsable guide embraces all cultures and every style of painting from 4,000 BC to the present. A visually arresting reference for art lovers and students, it provides a truly comprehensive worldwide gazeteer of paintings organized chronologically by date of completion. Each entry includes the history of the painting, information about the artist or artistic movement, the current location of the painting (all are on view to the public), as well as other details...View More...

Someone Is Trying to Tell You SomethingThis book is a glimpse into a vast conversation happening illegally and in public.All over the world, people are writing messages on the walls and sidewalks of the cities in which we live. They are staying up late, breaking the law, and taking risks to say something to you.Some of it is funny. Some of it is beautiful. Lots of it is upsetting, crazy, and brilliant at the same time. And all of it is important.This book continues that conversation through the eyes of photographers who recognized the importance of those words on the walls and shar...View More...

Triumph of the Spirit examines the work of the late Cuban American painter Carlos Alfonzo (1950-1991). The book traces the development of his evocative and complex visual language in works ranging from early, ideographic works on paper to the final, monumental canvas Blood, painted months before his AIDS-related death.After emigrating to the United States in 1980 as part of the Mariel boatlift, Alfonzo developed a national reputation from his home base in Miami. His work was included in the 1987 exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States. Yet it was not until his inclusion in the 1991 Whi...View More...

This is the story of how a fabled art foundation the greatest collection of impressionist and postimpressionist art in America came to be, and why it is now, thanks to more than a decade of legal squabbling, on the brink of financial collapse. The Barnes Collection has been conservatively valued at more than $6 billion and includes some 69 Cezannes (more than in all the museums of Paris combined), 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, 18 Rousseaus, 14 Modiglianis, and no fewer than 180 Renoirs. Yet the Barnes is in crisis. Its founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872), grew up in the slums of late-nineteenth-c...View More...

What is landscape? How does it differ from "land?" Does landscape always imply something to be pictured, a scene? When and why did we begin to cherish images of nature? What is "nature?" Is it everything that isn't art, or artifact? By addressing these and many other questions, Landscape andWestern Art explores the myriad ideas and images of the natural world in Western art since the Renaissance. Implying that land is the raw material, and that art is created by turning land into landscape, which then becomes art, author Malcolm Andrews takes the reader on a thematic tour of the fascinati...View More...

The underlying themes that run through contemporary art, irrespective of styles and techniques, reveal the complex relationship between art and everyday life worldwide. This revised and expanded edition is brought up to date with discussions on the more comprehensive globalization of art since the mid-1990s, which can be seen in the growth of the exhibition calendar and the number of new contemporary art museums opening around the world. With over thirty additional illustrations and an updated timeline and bibliography, this book will prove indispensable to anyone interested in the evolution o...View More...